Mexico: Drug Lord Escape Tunnel Was Deep and ‘High-Tech’

The kind of tunnel that led Mexico’s most powerful drug lord to freedom would have been more than a year in planning

Mexico's attorney general authorities inspect the exit of the tunnel they claim was used by drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman to break out of the Altiplano maximum security prison in Almoloya, west of Mexico City, on July 12, 2015. Mexico's Attorney General's Office via AP

ALMOLOYA, Mexico—The kind of tunnel that led Mexico’s most powerful drug lord to freedom would have been more than a year in planning. The digging would have caused noise. The entrance would have to be in a place beyond the view of security cameras at Mexico’s toughest prison.

As authorities hunted Monday for any sign of Mexico’s most powerful drug lord, it was clear that Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s escape must have involved inside help on a grand scale.

Interior Secretary Miguel Angel Osorio Chong said as much Monday night. He announced that three prison officials had been fired, including Valentin Cardenas, director of the facility known as Altiplano, a maximum security prison 55 miles (90 kilometers) west of Mexico City.

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